Alameda’s Greenest Shopping Spot

The Bay Area is widely known for its environmental efforts. It’s also known for its grassroots movements. Often, we tend to celebrate the little guy more than the big ones. We’re independent in spirit, and often change makers.

You likely shop local, independent and green businesses because it’s important to you too. You know the little things can make big changes – both good and bad

As far as being eco-conscious you recycle, maybe even compost. You turn off lights when you’re not using them. You don’t waste water. You buy recycled goods. You support the local businesses which has a positive environmental impact.

You want the places you shop to do the same at the very least.

But you need places like that to exist so that you can do business with them. It’s often from the little guys that these changes happen.

Environmental stewardship has been at our core since the start. For nearly 10 years we have been a Bay Area Certified Green Business.

As the anchor tenant at the Marketplace, it’s been important to us to get others in on the movement; in the building, up and down Park Street and across Alameda for that matter.

Here at the Marketplace, we’re home to 11 locally owned and independently operated businesses. And as of a few weeks ago, we are thrilled to announce that 9 of them are now Bay Area Certified Green Businesses. (Technically, The Pantry’s an entity of ANG, so they’re on our certification, but we treat it as a separate shop.)

For us, it’s just the right thing to do. It’s been that way for us for about 10 years. By being the flagship and anchor tenant here, it was also on us to lead the charge for the others to follow suit. By making large changes to the utilities and infrastructure to the MP we were able to help our fellow vendors.

We’ve done a range of things from how we handle waste, installing more efficient lighting, painted our roof white for climate control, insulating, adding low flow dual purpose toilets, waterless urinals, smart sinks, energy efficient hand dryer and getting all of our power through renewable resources. We have efficient waste management and recycling efforts that direct huge amounts of excess away from the landfills, and so much more.

As of writing this, there are 34 bay Area Certified Green Businesses in Alameda. With the large number of them here at the Marketplace that means roughly 23% of all of Alameda’s Bay Area Certified Green Businesses are here, all under one roof.

Maybe that number doesn’t sound too large, but it’s still pretty impressive. When considering that South Shore, the new Alameda Landing development and Blanding Bridge shopping have nearly a 1,000,000 square feet of commercial real estate combined, 19,000 seems miniscule.

Guess how much Certified Green business you’ll find in those 3 shopping areas?

None. Zip, zero, nada.

While 19,000 more sq. ft. isn’t a ton of real estate, it’s 19,000 more than you’ll find in those major shopping centers.

So that part about the little guys making small changes with a big impact. By combining our efforts here, we’ve been able to become Alameda’s greenest shopping spot.

We’ve started a little epicenter here that we’re proud of and you should be too. We push for these things because of you.

Our efforts have also had a small influence on our immediate area. Looking up and down the list of Alameda’s Certified Green Businesses, you’ll see a large majority of them are on or very near Park Street. We don’t think that’s an accident.

Likely there are a lot of businesses in Alameda that could be considered green or a couple of small changes away from it, but just aren’t certified. It’s important to us that we are, as it adds a legitimacy and accountability to the businesses that promote an eco-conscious image.

While we may be a small store compared to some others, that’s the sort of impact a motivated, and forward thinking company can do that can make a lasting and positive change.

We know that being green is important to our customers, and it’s with that knowledge that we continually strive to reduce our carbon footprint even still. Even if it isn’t a factor for you, we’re still determined to do that because it’s what we believe in.